Environmental reporter Jack Prator moderated a panel discussion at the Palladium Theater in St. Petersburg Thursday night. The topic? Climate change\u2019s impact on Tampa Bay housing.<\/p>\n
The panelists included Mack Feldman, vice president of asset management for Feldman Equities; Rep. Lindsay Cross of House District 60; Claude Tankersley, St. Petersburg\u2019s public works administrator; Sam Henderson, adjunct professor of natural sciences and former mayor of Gulfport; and Amber Woods, youth chair of Florida Rising.<\/p>\n
These were the panelists\u2019 responses to key questions posed by Prator, a reporter with the Tampa Bay Times.<\/p>\n
Nearly two years after Hurricanes Helene and Milton, how much has Gulfport changed and what has stayed the same?<\/p>\n
As former mayor of Gulfport, Henderson said roughly 60% of the city\u2019s land area was affected by storm surge. Many of those residents have had to rebuild, or are still rebuilding, with FEMA assistance.<\/p>\n
Those affected not only have to rebuild, Henderson explained, but \u201chave to build back higher,\u201d changing the scale of the city. As a result, people are spending far more money than anticipated.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also changing the demographics of areas,\u201d he added. As waterfront neighborhoods become more expensive to rebuild and insure, living a little farther from the water has become more desirable, driving up housing costs elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Feldman noted how downtown St. Petersburg has seen a \u201cmassive influx\u201d in population. Because downtown sits at a higher elevation, he said, it\u2019s become an increasingly attractive place to live.<\/p>\n
But there are tradeoffs. \u201cWhen you are looking at downtown generally,\u201d he said, \u201chow many people displaced from the waterfront can we accommodate downtown? It\u2019s going to take very careful and thoughtful planning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Woods, who lives in Wildwood Heights, said her neighborhood didn\u2019t bear the brunt of the storms. However, she pointed to the concept of \u201cclimate gentrification.\u201d She said her neighborhood now \u201clooks delicious\u201d to homebuyers and developers, leaving legacy homeowners worried they\u2019ll eventually be priced out and see their neighborhood become unrecognizable.<\/p>\n
Cross represents Shore Acres and Riviera Bay, neighborhoods that have become nationally known for flooding issues. Of the roughly 10,000 homes flooded during the hurricanes, many were in those communities, where homeowners are still waiting for state and federal funds to help make them whole.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany are paying both their mortgages and for a rental,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Tankersley said that even his neighborhood in west St. Petersburg, which isn\u2019t in a flood zone, experienced flooding. \u201cWhen you look at aerial photographs of St. Pete, you can see much of St. Pete has divots that are always wet,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we built St. Pete we built canals and waterways, but when you have enough rain, they flood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tankersley said his house sits just six inches higher than that of his neighbors. Their yards and homes flooded while his remained dry.<\/p>\n
How does climate change affect housing costs, and where are people moving?<\/p>\n
Woods returned to the notion of climate gentrification. \u201cPeople are being priced out from insurance,\u201d she said. \u201cThe more these infrastructure programs develop, we are fighting for equity, but the catch is the more your home value increases, which increases your taxes. And wages are not increasing with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She explained that many households have become overcrowded, with multiple generations living together because families can no longer afford other options.<\/p>\n
Feldman, speaking from the perspective of real estate, described the challenge as one of land use and policy. Where can the city put homes, and what type of homes should be built to keep housing costs reasonable without creating unintended consequences?<\/p>\n
Ultimately, he said, it will require carefully balancing policy, land use and development to keep people \u201chigh, dry and safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cross, approaching the issue as a policymaker, said, \u201cUnfortunately, at a state level, when cities like St. Petersburg are trying to do things that are proactive, but maybe don\u2019t fit the model of the development community, Tallahassee is really good at preempting those and making proactive solutions more difficult,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Tankersley echoed that concern: \u201cThe city doesn\u2019t have the opportunity to implement sales taxes or gas taxes. We are limited in what fees and taxes we can generate \u2026 but without that revenue coming into the local community we cannot redistribute that money where it\u2019s most needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
What has the city done to make the community drier and safer, and what\u2019s left to do?<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot left to do,\u201d Tankersley said. \u201cWe failed to develop the community correctly in the first place by learning to live with St. Pete as it naturally is. We sought to overly engineer it. And thought we could conquer it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He explained that many homes are now built directly alongside canals and drainage systems, making it nearly impossible to expand those waterways to handle increasingly intense rainfall.<\/p>\n
Harkening back to the city\u2019s limited ability to collect taxes, Feldman stressed the importance of the city\u2019s proposed $600 million St. Pete Agile Resilience (SPAR) bond referendum, which voters will consider in November. The SPAR initiative accelerates citywide flood protection, stormwater drainage and wastewater infrastructure improvements.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would implore you all to consider the investment we need to make in this city,\u201d Feldman said. \u201cWe are going to pay these costs one way or another.\u201d He pointed out that the proposed bond would cover only about one-quarter of the city\u2019s estimated $2 billion in resiliency infrastructure needs.<\/p>\n
What can regular folks do? What\u2019s the most effective way to bring people together on climate issues?<\/p>\n
Woods answered: \u201cWell \u2026 the most effective strategy has been to find a common enemy, and right now Duke Energy is that guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said Florida Rising\u2019s Clean St. Pete initiative has focused on issues ranging from alleyway cleanup to trees growing into power lines \u2014 problems that became even more apparent after the storms, problems that Woods claims are the result of Duke Energy.<\/p>\n
Tankersley lauded those grassroots efforts. \u201cWe have found that the silver lining after the storms is we\u2019ve been engaged with a lot of grassroots organizations,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve been coming to us with their priorities, asking, \u2018How can we work together?’\u201d<\/p>\n
Henderson said those partnerships will become even more important as communities confront future storms. He also stressed the importance of preserving local revenue sources, warning that continued erosion of home rule \u2014 including proposals affecting property taxes \u2014 could leave cities with fewer resources to maintain infrastructure, much less improve it.<\/p>\n
Cross pointed to Shore Acres as an example of the difficult choices communities face. \u201cPerhaps we can elevate some of the houses,\u201d she said. \u201cBut then do we also need to elevate the roads?\u201d Keeping homes dry is only part of the challenge if residents still can\u2019t leave their neighborhoods during major floods.<\/p>\n
Feldman pointed to St. Petersburg\u2019s Coastal High Hazard Area, where more than 40% of the city lies. He suggested future development in those high-risk areas should continue helping fund resiliency projects through mitigation requirements and impact fees, ensuring new waterfront development also contributes to protecting the broader community.<\/p>\n
Panelists spanning government, development, engineering, advocacy and education, all agreed on one point: adapting to climate change will require long-term planning, continued investment and cooperation between residents, local governments and the private sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Environmental reporter Jack Prator moderated a panel discussion at the Palladium Theater in St. Petersburg Thursday night. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-344537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}